Boston Desserts (Omni Parker House Hotel and Modern Pastry)

During my adventures in exploring Boston, I had desserts on a couple occasions. This blog post chronicles these desserts...

Omni Parker House's Boston Cream Pie:

I took a guided tour along parts of the Freedom Trail. One of the stops on the tour was the Omni Parker House Hotel. Our tour guide spouted out all kinds of interesting facts about this historic hotel, ranging from the presidents and celebrities who have stayed here to the hotel's ghost stories. The one fact that made my food blogger radar perk up was that the dessert known as a Boston Cream Pie was invented in one of the hotel's restaurants.

I decided I needed to try a Boston Cream Pie from the place it was created. I later returned to the hotel and found out their coffee/gift shop sold the pies without having to go into the pricy Parker's Restaurant. The price almost scared me away. Eight dollars and change for a small dessert that was three inches in diameter. Still, I had walked across town to try the pie, so I splurged.

I think I may have had Boston Cream Pies and Boston Cream Doughnuts mixed up in my head. I was expecting much more cream in here. Instead, the pie consisted of two layers of cake with a thin layer of cream sandwiched in between. It was topped with chocolate icing. After the initial surprise that this was more of a cake than a cream filled pie, I enjoyed the dessert. The cake was moist. The small layer of cream provided a little change in flavor to mix things up. Although it was tasty, the Boston Cream Pie definitely wasn't worth the price and I wouldn't spend that money again. Still, I can say I've tried the original Boston Cream Pie!


 

Modern Pastry:

During the same tour where I found out about the Boston Cream Pies, the guide also recommended checking out Little Italy. I took up that advise and found myself getting dessert at a bakery called Modern Pastry. For a place with modern in the name, they had a very retro neon sign.

The place was filled with cases and cases of delicious looking pastries, cakes, cookies, pies, and other sweets.

I had a sfogliatelle. This flaky lobster tail-like pastry was filled with a delicious cheesy filling. I ate the sfogliatelle in a nearby park where a flock of sparrows really enjoyed eating all the crumbs that fell from the flaky crust...

King Cake in New Orleans, LA: (PJ's Coffee, Mardi Gras World, and Gerald's King Cake)

I was in New Orleans while Mardi Gras celebrations were happening. Because of this, I felt the need to eat some King Cake. For the uninformed, my basic uninformed understanding of a King Cake is that they are vaguely based on Catholic traditions and are supposed to be eaten between the Epiphany and Lent. A toy baby representing Jesus is hidden inside the cake. Whoever gets the slice of cake with the baby is then responsible for providing the King Cake at the next Mardi Gras party. I'm sure Wikipedia can do a much better job at describing the cakes than I can. My first King Cake experience happened at PJ's Coffee on Canal Street.

I didn't realize it at the time, but PJ's Coffee is a big chain on the Gulf Coast. After my visit to this PJ's location, I started noticing them everywhere. They were much more prevalent than Starbucks in New Orleans, and I saw them in Mississippi on the drive home as well. I initially wasn't planning on getting King Cake when I walked into PJ's, but their signs for King Cake Lattes peaked my interest. Once I ordered the latte, I decided the next logical thing would be to have a slice of the cake to go with the beverage. The King Cake Latte was really sweet, but I'm not sure if I would have identified it as King Cake flavored if I didn't know that's what I ordered. The slice of King Cake was tasty enough, although not my favorite that I tried on my trip. I did enjoy dipping the King Cake into the King Cake Latte. There wasn't a chance of getting a baby in this cake. According to the cashier, PJ's used to put the babies in the King Cake until someone broke a tooth on one. This apparently didn't go over well with corporate, so now you just get cake.

My second King Cake experience was at Mardi Gras World. This is the Kern Studios location that is open to the public for tours where you get to see all sorts of giant styrofoam and paper mache creatures being made to go on Mardi Gras floats. They begin their tour by giving everyone a slice of King Cake while they show you a video. I'm not sure who made this particular cake, but this was my favorite. It had a strong cinnamon flavor swirled into the slice of cake.

The last and final King Cake from my visit to New Orleans was made by Gerald's King Cakes. I bought this from a Praline store in the French Quarter to bring back to Florida. It came with a baby, although not in the cake itself. There may have been a slight cinnamon flavor, but nowhere as strong as the cake from Mardi Gras World. I also detected somewhat of a lemony flavor, either in the cake itself or in the icing.

Yum Yum Cupcake Truck in Orlando, FL

Yum Yum Cupcake Truck was among one of the first gourmet food trucks to show up in Orlando. As their name implies, they specialize in cupcakes. Yum Yum can generally be found at the Food Truck Bazaars as well as other food truck events around town.

They always seem to have a large selection of cupcakes on hand:

I tried one of their peanut butter cupcakes at the Lake Lily Food Truck Pod. 

This salted caramel cupcake, topped with caramel popcorn, came from the very first Food Truck Bazaar in Casselberry.

Follow The Yum Yum Cupcake Truck on Twitter @YumYumTruck_FL to figure out where they are located.

1 Year

Watch Me Eat turns one year old today. It all started last April 29 when I created this blog by posting a picture of my food from Red Lobster. I didn't quite have a goal for the Watch Me Eat, and I figured I'd keep on posting until I got bored with it. So far, I haven't gotten bored yet!

Since that initial start at Red Lobster, Watch Me Eat has gotten up to a grand total of 209 posts. The majority of these posts feature restaurants in Florida, but there was the occasional trip out of state. Here's the official one year list of states that Watch Me Eat visited over the past year:

• Florida
  
• South Carolina
  
• North Carolina
  
• Virginia
  
• Pennsylvania
  
• New Jersey
  
• New York
  

There was one excursion out of the United States over the past year which took Watch Me Eat into International waters and eventually to the Bahamas.

Over the past year, I've accumulated a list of restaurants that are my favorites (and least favorites). Here's a list of some of these restaurants. It's nowhere near complete, but includes some of the restaurants I can think of off of the top of my head at the moment:

• Best Pizza- King Umbertos, Elmont, NY
  
• Worst Pizza- Gio's Cafe I, Sanford, FL
  
• Best Chinese (take out)- China Wok III, Sanford, FL
  
• Best Chinese (sit down)- Imperial Dynasty, Longwood, FL
  
• Best Sushi- Bayridge Sushi, Longwood, FL
  
• Best Japanese Steakhouse- Kobe, Longwood, FL
  
• Best Middle Eastern- Falafel Cafe, Orlando, FL
  
• Best Vegetarian- Angelica Kitchen, NY
  
• Best Mexican- Garibaldi, Apopka, FL
  
• Best Buffet- Texas de Brazil, Orlando, FL
  
• Best Cajun- Crooked Bayou, Orlando, FL
  
• Best Barbecue- Maurice's Barbecue, Santee, NC
  
• Best Fast Food- Ikea Snack Bar, Orlando, FL
  
• Most Unique- T-Rex, Orlando, FL
  
• Best Theme Park Fast food- Louie's Pizza- Universal Studios, Orlando, FL
  
• Best Theme Park Sit Down- Sci-Fi Diner Drive In- Disney Studios, Walt Disney World, Florida
  
• Best Restaurant that Closed within the past year- Cheyenne Saloon
  

Polonia Poppy Roll

I had a Poppy Roll from Polonia in Longwood, FL. Polonia is the only place around that I know of that makes these, and they are really good. If you've never tried a poppy roll for dessert, you don't know what you're missing!

Chicken Cannelloni from Romano's Macaroni Grill in Altamonte Springs, FL

I ate at the Romano's Macaroni Grill in Altamonte Springs, FL. I ordered their Chef's Trio.

A Caesar salad was served first.

I had Chicken Cannelloni for the main course. I consisted of pasta rolled around chicken, spinach, and cheese. The cannelloni was topped with a cream sauce, more cheese, and some tomato sauce.

Dessert came last. I had a slice of chocolate cake. It was good, but it was way too rich for me to eat much of the cake.

I had no complaints about the food. It was a pretty good deal to get all that for $12, and it all tasted good. Much better than Olive Garden.

Polonia in Longwood, FL

I ate at Polonia in Longwood, FL. Polonia is a Polish restaurant located on 17-92 in a former fast food restaurant building that has housed many different restaurants. The building started out as a Captain D's, and then became several different restaurants serving various types of Asian food. I would say my most interesting experience eating in one of these incarnations was when the building housed a fast food Chinese restaurant. As I was eating my meal, two Red-Eared Sliders walked out of the kitchen and across the dining room. I've seen some interesting animals in restaurants (rats!), but this was the only time I've ever seen turtles wandering around a restaurant. Knowing that turtles and salmonella go together, I never returned to the restaurant, or the future restaurants in the building.

That is, until Polonia opened. When they opened in this location, the local Orlando newspapers all started to write good reviews of the place, so I gave it a try. Polonia broke the chain of fast food Asian restaurants by setting up a sit-down Polish restaurant, and there were no reptiles, amphibians, or rodents in sight. I've since returned to Polonia a few times, and it's generally pretty good. This visit started out with a basket of some good rye bread.

For the main course, I ordered the Big Polish Platter, which came with stuffed cabbage (in tomato sauce), three pierogies, a fresh kielbasa, and sauerkraut. The stuffed cabbage was okay, but I found it to taste a bit too much like plain meatloaf. There was some rice mixed in with the ground beef, but not enough. The sauce was good though. For the pierogies, I had the choice of meat, sauerkraut and cheese, or potato & cheese. I went with the potato & cheese, and I have no complaints about them. It's amazing how much better fresh pierogies are compared to those frozen pierogies from the supermarket. The kielbasa was good and tasted like a Polish sausage should. The sauerkraut was interesting. It wasn't as tart and was very finely chopped when compared to most sauerkraut that I've eaten, but it was still good.

Overall, the food was pretty good for the most part. All that meat and the lack of vegetables was a little more than I'm used to eating in one sitting, but I guess that's the way they eat in Poland.

I wanted to get some poppy seed cake for dessert, but they didn't have any on the day I ate at the restaurant. They had apple strudel instead, but I'm not a big fan of cooked apples. Poppy cake or rolls are much better...

Christmas Panforte

A panforte was ordered from Amazon to have for dessert on Christmas. The panforte was a type of very dense cake filled with dried fruit and nuts, topped with powdered sugar. It actually was more like a candy rather than a cake, but it was a very unique dessert.

Publix Cheesecake

This is a chocolate covered cheesecake that came from the bakery in the Publix Supermarket in Lake Mary, FL (on Lake Mary Blvd). The cheesecake itself was good, but the chocolate covering wasn't that good. Since the cake was refrigerated, the chocolate got nice and hard. This didn't work too well since cutting the first slice of cake caused the hard chocolate to shatter on the whole cake. At the same time, the chocolate pieces pushed down into the cheesecake, squishing and crumbling the good part! It was tasty though.

Altamonte Mall Cinnabon

I got the free end of a cinnamon roll with a buy one, get one free coupon from Cinnabon in the Altamonte Mall. Cinnabon cinnamon rolls always taste really doughy to me, almost as if they aren't cooked enough...

Chef's Trio @ Romano's Macaroni Grill

I ate at Romano's Macaroni Grill in Lake Mary, FL and ordered the three course dinner that was offered called the Chef's Trio. It started out with a Caesar Salad:

That was followed with a plate of Fettuccine Alfredo:

And a slice of Lemon Passion Cake for dessert:

The meal wasn't anything exceptional, but was an okay deal for $11.99 in this type of restaurant.